Croat on trial for war crimes

March 12, 2008|The New York Times

PARIS — A popular Croatian general who led a brutal operation that drove the Serbs out of eastern Croatia near the end of the Balkans war went on trial in The Hague on Tuesday for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Gen. Ante Gotovina, working closely with American advisers, was the commander of a military campaign in the summer of 1995 that put an end to the Serbian occupation of eastern Croatia and forced more than 150,000 Serbs to flee towns and villages where they had lived for generations.

Prosecutors at the war crimes tribunal, while not disputing Croatia's right to retake its land, have accused Gotovina and his two co-defendants, Gens. Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, of crimes including knowingly shelling civilian targets, allowing their forces to go on violent rampages during and after the campaign, terrorizing civilians, and looting and burning Serbian homes.

Lawyers familiar with the trial believe it may also shed more light on the little-known covert American role.

U.S. military advisers helped plan the operation, and Americans directed drone aircraft over the battle zone to gain real-time intelligence for Croatian forces, Croatian government officials have said.

The United States is not implicated in any of the criminal charges related to the operation, but some of its intelligence methods and sources may be revealed, lawyers at the court said.